Technicality kills drug case

BAGUIO CITY—A judge here on Wednesday acquitted a woman facing an illegal drugs case after the court found irregularities in the handling of evidence following a sting operation in 2009.

Court records said Brenda Alidem supposedly sold P1,500 worth of shabu (methamphetamine hydrochloride) to an undercover agent of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) in her house in QM Subdivision here on Dec. 31, 2009.

Alidem had pleaded innocent. Judge Rose Mary Molina-Alim, acting presiding judge of the Regional Trial Court Branch 3, said the PDEA evidence proves that Alidem was arrested in a legitimate buy-bust operation.

Alim, however, gave equal credence to the cross-examination conducted by Alidem’s lawyer, Abelardo Estrada, who established that the PDEA had not followed procedures in documenting how its evidence against Alidem was transported from the crime scene to a police laboratory for testing.

Alim said the court could not “simply close its eyes, at least to the possibility that the substance confiscated could have been the subject of tampering, alteration or substitution.” Vincent Cabreza, Inquirer Northern Luzon